My mutterings on life, thoughts and actions.

Olympic

I always thought the Olympics was about Elite Athletes but it seems you also need to be quite Elite to get a ticket too. Some people have seen money fly out of their bank account as the lottery for the 2012 London Olympic tickets has been producing “winners” for tickets. I have no idea if we have got any, (though I could probably guess, but will find out when I get home tonight), but I do think the whole process is very disappointing for the general public in terms of the way the ticket lottery has ensured that only those with decent disposable income could apply with any real hope of getting a ticket.

When we filled it out, we could only apply for some tickets that we could afford, and did not feel we could take the risk of putting our names down for lots on the assumption that we would only win one or two, what would happen if we won them all, we could not afford to pay for that, but it does encourage people to take the risk, and there has been people who have fallen foul of it.

Really what has happened, is that this once in a lifetime event is going to be mainly there for those citizens who can pay £1000’s of pounds for a ticket (I believe that the opening ceremony is very expensive) which on the face of it could be acceptable. However just think of how much of our tax money has gone into it, and London in particular has had a Olympic Tax on their council tax too, and then having to fork out even more cash to go and see it.

Quite frankly, I think Joe Public has been screwed, in terms of what each and every one of us has paid. What would I have preferred? I fully appreciate that corporate seats are there to raise revenue, and that a proportion of the seats are allocated thus, but I would have liked to have seen a National Lottery of Free* tickets (*they are not really free because we have already paid through tax). Yes, not everyone would get one and there could be a similar system as present for those not being used to hand them back etc to sell, but in the first instance I think it would have been great to see the lottery be fair and not divisive on economic class or status.